The Assassin of Verona

by The Assassin of Verona (retail) (epub)

  A faint, unsettling sound could be heard echoing off the stone walls of the staircase, ascending from the darkness below. Oldcastle could not name its source or its nature. Its unreal quality put Oldcastle in mind of the cry of a mermaid.

  ‘Your man, Russell,’ Thornhill went on, paying the strange sound no heed, you have known him long?’

  ‘Twenty years,’ said Oldcastle, remembering when he had first seen Hemminges, solid and strong even at that young age, a boy player then. He’d the measure of me from the off, thought Oldcastle. Where in the name of God is he now?

  ‘He too is faithful to the Pope?’

  ‘As a hound, Father, faithful as a hound. Though in truth I suspect he thinks as much of such matters as a hound would—’

  Oldcastle stopped. The sound from below could be heard, louder now and distinctively human. A chill tremor ran through him for he had heard those noises before. Then they emanated from his own throat as the Duchess of Bracciano’s men had tortured him in Venice. He looked round. Thornhill’s men stood behind, blocking the route up.

  ‘Where do we go?’ said Oldcastle.

  Thornhill stopped and turned. ‘Why to the dungeon, Sir Nicholas. To the prisoners.’ He continued on down the stairs. Oldcastle followed, sick with fear at what he was to see.

  The steps became a narrow hallway lit by thin grates high above. As they strode along it, chambers either side, barred with iron, revealed bare rooms, empty for the most part, save two. One contained a white-faced man, crouched in the corner of his cell, hands pressed over his ears. In the other the prisoner clutched at the bars and watched Oldcastle pass with eyes as large as an owl’s, terror writ in every line of his face. Thornhill paid them no heed. He marched to the wooden door at the far end of the corridor from behind which the moaning came, a moan that as they reached the door burst into a keening howl of pain and terror, and ebbed to sobs. Oldcastle felt his knees shake at the sound.

  The door opened on a charnel house. Oldcastle stopped suddenly at the entrance, the two papal soldiers behind him bumping into him at his unexpected halt. Inside the outlaw captured after the raid on the merchant’s train was strapped to a table with leather thongs. Another of the papal men stoked a brazier that gave a red glow to the thin light that came from a grate far, far above. The outlaw’s naked, grimy body was marked in many places with cruel, red sores where the poker had been applied. The smell of burnt flesh, of vomit and of terror was rich in the stale air. Oldcastle felt himself faint. Thornhill seemed unmoved by the stench in the small room and by the man’s piteous mewls. The naked bandit looked half mad with terror and pain.

  ‘Has he provided any intelligence?’ asked Thornhill.

  ‘Nothing that we did not already know,’ answered the man at the brazier with an appraising look over the mutilated man before him. ‘I dare not press him more now. We can try again when these wounds have healed.’

  ‘This must stop.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Thornhill swung sharply to Oldcastle.

  ‘This must stop,’ said Oldcastle in a louder voice. ‘There is no—’

  ‘I did not think to find a soldier so meek,’ said Thornhill.

  Oldcastle’s fear was mingled with horror. Hell had gaped open and he stood at the entrance. He remembered when he had been the one to suffer. He felt his fear turn to disgust, at this Thornhill, aye, at any who would use such methods against another man, but at this priest in particular, whose office should offer succour, not suffering. His loathing for the man stiffened his back. When he turned his eyes from the tortured figure before him to the priest that had wrought the foul deed, it was Sir Nicholas Hawkwood who had in a dozen bloody broils never quailed, never blanched at sight of blood, that looked out at Thornhill and spoke in a voice that could be heard above the cannon’s roar.

  ‘The Duke has given no authority to this questioning.’

  ‘I do not need the Duke’s authority.’

  Oldcastle took a step toward Thornhill and planted himself.

  ‘This is the Duke’s prisoner. You will not touch him without the Duke’s licence.’

  Thornhill said nothing for a long moment. The rise and fall of the sobs of the tortured man came like the ticking of a clock to fill the silence. Oldcastle felt the men behind him elbowed aside by the Duke’s captain of guards who finally saw as Oldcastle did and drew breath in echo of Oldcastle’s horror.

  ‘Very well,’ said Thornhill. He nodded to his man, who thrust the poker back into the brazier and went over to the prisoner, bent over him and gripping his hair lifted his head up and whispered in his ear. The prisoner looked up and weakly shook his head. Thornhill pursed his lips, gestured to his man who began to untie the prisoner, and then brushed past Oldcastle and went up, out of the dungeon, calling back over his shoulder as he went: ‘You will inform me the moment that the Duke returns.’

  Oldcastle did not answer but turned and strode from the room to follow Thornhill up and out of the dungeon before he’d realised that Thornhill had not made a request but given an order.

  Oldcastle hurried up the stairs. Dionisio waited for him in the courtyard. Taking in Oldcastle’s pale face and trembling hand he at once ushered him towards his rooms. Foul priest, thought Oldcastle, to question me like that, to show me horrors to fright me. Why if there’s anything worse than a cup of sack with lime in it, then it’s a meddlesome priest. Ah, sack! There was the remedy for this unsettled stomach of his.

  ‘Wine, Dionisio, and much of it,’ he said. He tried to ignore the restless tremble of his hand as he walked.

  Across the palace, another master and servant spoke.

  ‘The Englishman knew nothing?’ asked Arrigo, who since his arrival now had charge of Father Thornhill’s company of soldiers.

  ‘Nothing,’ answered Thornhill. ‘Less than nothing. The prisoner did not know him. Nor did he give any sign of guilt. The sight of that man’s torture would have unmanned him enough if his conscience troubled him. This Hawkwood boasts and he drinks, sins enough, but he’s either a dissembler greater than the Devil himself or he’s no spy. I think him the old soldier he calls himself. So, if the heretics have not escaped some other way then they are yet to make it this far. They must be in the woods.’

  To strike me, spurn me – nay, to kill me too

  The Veneto

  ‘We are to die, then?’

  Valentine sent up a frantic moan at Aemilia’s question, which brought smiles to some of the outlaws’ faces and caused others to roll their eyes.

  ‘Only if you give us cause,’ said Orlando. ‘We are thieves, not murderers, save of necessity. These swords and staves are our untutored rhetoric, they’re for persuasion. We can be civil if you are.’

  Aemilia unhooked her satchel and threw it to the ground.

  ‘Your purse too, and it please you,’ said Orlando.

  ‘There’s nought in it but remembrances of my old mother. Let me keep it,’ pleaded Aemilia.

  ‘Jesus, not this again,’ growled another bandit, far uglier than Orlando and with a cast to his eye.

  ‘I am afraid we’ll have all, remembrance too,’ said the outlaws’ leader with a smile.

  ‘No!’

  The next moment was a blur of shouting and cries: Orlando’s sudden cry of ‘no’, his hand raised and staring behind her as she twisted about to see what caught his gaze and saw one of the outlaws, his club raised to strike her down. Then a buzz of wind beside her face and an arrow’s shaft took him in the arm and spun him back, with a great cry of pain.

  The outlaws scattered for cover against the trees but, not knowing from which quarter the danger sprang, became a flock of hens darting hither and yon. Aemilia stood, rabbit-like, in the road, transfixed by danger. She saw Valentine curled in a ball on the ground, squealing with fear. She saw Orlando edging his way from a crouch to standing to peer about a tree and the hammer’s rap as an arrow sank itself, fist deep, into the tree beside his head.

  Then a stillness came, broken only by the moa
ns of Valentine and the weeping of the outlaw with the skewered arm.

  ‘Well, goddamn,’ said the ugly outlaw with a cast to his eye, to no one in particular. Orlando was shaking his head and muttering from his hastily resumed crouch. He called out: ‘Jacopo, Giulio, what is the business?’

  No answer came.

  ‘Jacopo! Giulio! What can you see?’

  Still no answer came.

  ‘Jacopo, Giulio! Damn you.’

  Then a voice called out from the woods and Aemilia recognised it as Master Russell’s: Are those the names of the two men you set as backers to your ambush?’

  Orlando pointed at the outlaw with a cast in his eye and another man beside him and gestured to the woods. They shook their heads in answer until, by angry gestures and hissing imprecations of his own, Orlando persuaded them to venture after the voice. As they departed Orlando struck the tree with his fist in frustration.

  ‘You bluff well,’ he called. ‘I grant you that. Still we hold the best cards for the game in your two friends.’

  Master Russell’s voice cried out again but from a different place to where they’d heard it first: ‘No bluff. I’d ask the fellow with the red sash and the one with the shepherd’s cap to tell you so yourself but they’re past talking.’

  Orlando scowled and beat the tree again. He pointed to the last two of his company that were not holed with arrows, dead in the woods or already hunting for Hemminges and sent them too after the voice. Orlando’s eyes, like a stone skipped on a pond, glanced off Valentine to meet and hold Aemilia’s. Aemilia, for whom thought was now finally catching up with action, made to dart away but Orlando sprang in that same instant, grabbed her arm and pitched her to the ground. He dragged her to the cover of the tree and put the point of his dagger to her side.

  ‘Sit still, whelp,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Your friend has wasted all my manners and good humour with his jesting. I’ve none to spare for you.’

  Aemilia’s heart hammered in her chest. Her first instinct had been to struggle but the sharp point of Orlando’s dagger had dug into her skin. She looked to where Valentine lay, pale as the moon and wide-eyed as an owl, his mouth gaping and little mewls coming from it. No aid was to come from that quarter. Aemilia’s ears strained to hear from the woods. She looked up at Orlando and he down at her and both realised they had the same purpose. Orlando grinned.

  ‘Four to one is fearful odds,’ he said.

  He stiffened and the grin left him.

  ‘Two to one is better,’ said Hemminges from behind him. The point of his sword had tapped Orlando on the head and hovered now behind his neck.

  ‘But best of all is none to one, and so I have it. For all I need do now is run you through the back.’

  Orlando did not turn. He remained staring into Aemilia’s face, nor did his dagger move from its place in her side. He dug it in a little and Aemilia let out a gasp.

  ‘You cannot kill me fast enough to stop my dagger ending your friend’s life.’

  ‘True. I can but avenge the boy’s death,’ said Hemminges. ‘I am sorry for it, Sebastian, but you shall have justice in this life and so, I hope, in the next.’

  ‘No!’ screeched Valentine. ‘Throw up your blade, Master Russell. I beg you. I beg you.’

  Valentine still crouched nearby but his wide eyes were fixed on the brutal tableau before him, Master Russell with his sword held straight out and pointed at Orlando’s neck and Orlando hunched over Aemilia, his dagger obscured. Aemilia’s breath came in short, scared pants. She could feel Orlando’s tremble where he held her.

  ‘Such hasty talk of death and vengeance when we are all yet breathing,’ said Orlando.

  ‘Not all,’ said Hemminges. ‘There’s four at least I would not look to dine with again, unless it be in heaven.’

  Orlando took a deep breath. ‘Let us discuss the matter further.’

  ‘What’s to discuss? I kill you, you kill the boy and then I set to killing of the others. If they have not fled yet, as two I think have done. Wiser men than you. Though the one with the arrow in his arm has not crawled far.’

  ‘No,’ cried Valentine again, standing at last. ‘Let up, let up, I beg you.’ It was not clear to whom he spoke.

  ‘None need die today,’ said Orlando.

  ‘None more,’ corrected Hemminges.

  ‘Yes, yes. You’ll forgive me, sir, if I am not in the full grip of logic.’ Orlando’s frustration, fear and anger showed in his tone. ‘Let us say, listen to me, let us say I take my dagger from your friend’s side, stand up and we part, friends.’

  ‘I like it not. Let us say instead you drop your dagger now and I forbear to kill you till I have counted so much as a hundred.’

  Orlando tilted his head. That sounded like the best bargain he was like to get.

  ‘Two hundred?’

  ‘Drop the dagger, villain, and run.’ As Hemminges spoke he edged round the side of Orlando so that the man might see him. Then he took two paces back to show he would not strike in the instant that Orlando dropped his blade. Orlando watched him from the corner of his eye, and hesitated.

  It was Aemilia’s turn to cry ‘no’.

  Valentine took that moment to strike Master Russell on the head with a rock. Stunned, Hemminges stumbled and dropped his blade. Orlando leapt towards him as he staggered and grappled him to the ground. The two men rolled and wrestled, Hemminges desperately fending off the dagger in Orlando’s hand. Valentine squawked and ran to Aemilia and snatched at her hand. ‘Now, fly, fly,’ Valentine called as he pulled at her arm, his feet scrabbling in the wet leaves and mud as he sought for purchase against her body’s weight. She pushed herself from the ground and Valentine stumbled back at the sudden change.

  Aemilia wrenched her hand from his and ran to pluck Hemminges’ sword from the ground. She drove it down toward Orlando’s back, but as she struck the two wrestling men rolled and the blade missed and slipped and skittered off the rocks where the men had been a moment before. She drew back again but Orlando, seeing her set to strike, threw up his arms and cried for mercy. Hemminges rolled away and sprang to his feet. He took the sword from Aemilia’s shaking hand and raised it.

  ‘Mercy,’ said Orlando.

  Hemminges shifted his feet to thrust but Aemilia’s hand came upon his and stayed the blow. She turned to speak to the man on the ground.

  ‘You have a camp?’

  The sudden change of tack took Orlando by surprise and Aemilia had to repeat her question before he answered.

  ‘Yes, lad.’

  ‘My name is Sebastian. We three need shelter and food. Will you give it to us?’

  ‘What?’ said both Hemminges and Valentine.

  ‘It resolves all. In an instant are we hidden from my father’s pursuit, given shelter, given food. No word of us will reach the world to give away our presence.’

  ‘If it’s safety that you seek—’ began Orlando, battening on hope.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ growled Hemminges.

  ‘We’ll be murdered in our beds,’ whined Valentine.

  ‘No. I swear it on my life!’ cried out Orlando.

  ‘You see,’ said Aemilia. ‘It’s Christian charity to spare his life and doing , so, we find ourselves secure.’

  ‘This is a thief, a vagabond, a rogue,’ said Hemminges. ‘We put our trust in rotten planks to take his word.’

  ‘I am of noble birth, sir,’ said Orlando from the ground. ‘My word given, is a bond unbreakable.’

  ‘Your nobility is worth as little as the dust you lie in. Besides,’ Hemminges turned to Aemilia, ‘what of his company, what oaths will they keep?’

  ‘My men will do as I command,’ said Orlando.

  ‘I say no. There’s no safety in the company of thieves.’

  ‘Whether we join him or no,’ said Aemilia, ‘we cannot kill a man that’s on his back, begging for mercy.’

  ‘Best time to kill him, say I. Then is it easily done.’

  ‘Master Russell, please,’ Aem
ilia begged.

  The pattering of Aemilia’s heart stilled as she saw Hemminges flick up his blade. He slung it in his baldric again and stalked away. Orlando sighed and slumped against the earth. Hemminges stamped over to pick up his sack and Valentine’s. Valentine quailed before him.

  ‘I sought only to protect Aem—’ he stuttered before Master Russell cut him off by throwing his small sack to him. The pathetic creature caught it with both hands, which made it impossible for him to deflect the blow that followed. The slap rattled his teeth and knocked him to the ground.

  ‘You’re a fool, lad, who should trust where he doubts,’ said Hemminges to Valentine, bloody-mouthed and weeping and to whose comfort Aemilia ran. ‘Gather your things, we must be away with haste.’

  ‘Your men yet live,’ said Hemminges to Orlando over their backs. ‘At least I think it may be so if they receive care. You’ll find them yonder. Nothing some cat gut and a hot poker cannot cure I’ll warrant. If not...’ He shrugged.

  ‘Come, Sebastian. Come, Valentine. Cease your bleating. This mercy of yours will make for a restless night.’

  The third day comes a frost, a killing frost

  Verona

  Oldcastle, like the ostrich or the fretful porpentine, had stayed hidden in his rooms all that third day, refusing invitations and demands for audience alike. As he sat and drank and picked at food, he thought of the Duke’s return, of his anger, of his certain retribution against the man he’d left as treasurer of his daughter’s virtue and who had allowed the lock to be picked when scarce an hour had passed. By the bell that rang for the evening meal Oldcastle had been hanged, burnt, racked, boiled in oils and torn to pieces by horses without ever leaving his chair.

  The slam of the door came just as he was reaching, tremblingly, for his glass to calm nerves on fire from imagination of cruel deaths.

  ‘Hawkwood!’

  The Duke’s massy frame filled the door. His hair was as wild as his eyes, he still wore his riding clothes and his crop pointed at Oldcastle. Oldcastle shot to his feet and as the Duke charged down upon him he stumbled back, until the press of the wall beside the fireplace stopped further flight.